


Lost in Translation

by LiveOakWithMoss



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Caroling Elves and Amused Dwarves, Elf/Dwarf friendships, Flashbacks, Gen, Humor, If Narvi is flirting with Celebrimbor Celebrimbor has no effing clue, It becomes apparent that Maglor is the main Feanorion with singing ability, Tolkien Secret Santa Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5536361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celebrimbor has many talents; Dwarvish music is not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. I got the wonderful Tosquinha for the Tolkien Secret Santa exchange! Her requests included something for Celebrimbor and Narvi – or any 1st/2nd age Elf/Dwarf pals – and also a happy Fëanorion of any kind. So I combined them and got cheerful, tone-deaf Celebrimbor and his dwarf buddy – and maybe a few other Fëanorions, too.

 The foothills of the Misty Mountains were already blanketed in snow for the season, with cold sweeping up to the stout walls of the strongholds of Eregion – but no further. For inside, the fires crackled day and night, and the thick walls let in no whisper of the biting wind. Instead, cooks turned their hands to rich, hearty meals, waistbands were let out for the winter, and wine was mulled with hissing pokers and drunk regardless of time of day.

Rich food and strong drink and a wailing wind at the door – and a certain Elf Lord uncommonly merry.

_“From carvéd walllls…to….hewn column - ars…we sing! Ho, ho, HO, we sing, and our beards…drag lowwwww…”_

Narvi visibly winced as he entered the forge to the sound of Celebrimbor’s voice echoing off the walls.

“Sweet Mahal’s favorite jumper, Elf, what are you doing to our songs?”

“Singing them,” said Celebrimbor cheerily, wiping his forearm over his heat-flushed face and leaving a streak of soot. “Are you surprised that after spending so much time with you I have picked up on the songs you sing?”

“You haven’t picked them up, you’ve dropped them. You have the words all wrong.”

“Do I?”

“Aye, and grammatically sideways, too.” Narvi shook his head woefully, but Celebrimbor just hummed, unperturbed. “You may be an excellent jeweler and have uncommon fine cheekbones, but you cannot carry a tune in a pail.” Narvi eyed the empty tankard at Celebrimbor’s side. “You know that wine is stronger than usual, don’t you?”

“It goes all the better with the roast onion and pork and gravy turnovers the kitchens were serving today,” said Celebrimbor, giving his firm stomach a resounding smack. “By the Valar, I do love winter meals.”

Narvi nodded, stroking his beard. Celebrimbor was famed for his nearly un-Elven appetite; his ability to eat as much as a squadron of young Dwarves and show nothing for it but a healthy glow and a slight rounding at his well-muscled waist was the topic of great discussion and no small awe in the halls. Narvi eyed the frame in question once more, and thought, as he had many times before how well suited it was to a heavy leather apron and simple linen trousers. He would hardly recognize Celebrimbor in the robes of his people, though he wore them infrequently enough as it was –

“I also love Dwarvish tunes,” said Celebrimbor, who was paying no heed to Narvi’s wandering attention. “They are so uplifting, so steadfast, and so…sturdy.”

Narvi rolled his eyes. “Your people love that word when it comes to my folk. Sturdy, stocky, broad and brawny – Learn some new adjectives.”

“Does the word lie, though? Would you rather I called you delicate? Fragile? Petite?”

“I would rather you leave the descriptors at the door and stick to some solid, common-sense nouns.” Narvi folded his arms over his chest – which was, it had to be said, both broad and brawny, in addition to being sturdy – and leaned against the workbench. “Like, ‘This be Narvi, Master Craftsman and worker of stone, he is the fool who spends all his time with the mad Elf with the star on his vest.’”

“Ah ah, that was two descriptors I counted,” said Celebrimbor, waving a gloved finger. “ ‘ _Master_ Craftsman’ and ‘ _Mad_ Elf’.”

“Master Craftsman is a technical term,” said Narvi with dignity, “defined by my experience, apprenticeship, and certified by the Mine Master where I learned my trade. I have a tablet that testifies to it. ‘Master Craftsman’ is a professional designation. ‘Sturdy Dwarf’ is not.”

“And ‘Mad Elf’?”

“An indisputable fact.”

Celebrimbor spun his hammer meditatively, turning the conversation over in the space behind his eyes in the way he often did, and then his eyebrows drew suddenly together, the hammer slipping from his fingers to come down askew on the table. “Wait, you think I have nice cheekbones?”

“They’re certainly nicer than your delayed reaction time.”

Celebrimbor smiled, a brilliant flash of white teeth. “That may be the first compliment you’ve given me that wasn’t about my collection of awls.”

“To be fair, your awls may be even more uncommon fine than your cheekbones.” Narvi crossed the room to examine the project Celebrimbor was working on. “What’s this, then?”

“A set of bracelets.”

Narvi picked them up carefully. “Finely done. Bit delicate for your wrists…”

“They’re not for me.”

“Oh?” Narvi glanced up, and Celebrimbor blushed.

“They’re for…they’re for my kinswoman,” he said evenly. “Her begetting day is soon, and I thought…they would flatter her.”

“They’d flatter anyone,” said Narvi, deciding against making Celebrimbor turn even redder, and turning back to the anvil. “Anyway, don’t let me slow you up.”

Narvi busied himself with cataloguing some new ore samples at his workbench while Celebrimbor returned to work. Soon, the slightly off-key tune filled the room again.

Narvi listened, half smiling, and shook his head. “You know, lad, you blame me for that song, but I was never the one who taught it to you.”

“No?”

“I cannot be. I have not sung it since I was a wee child and heard my elders intone it. ‘Tis a very, very old song, and even when it’s lyrics are butchered, one can tell the language is archaic. Where did you pick it up?”

“I – hum.” Celebrimbor paused, holding very still as he thought, and as Narvi watched, his eyes took on a far off look, like he was looking at something in the distance, or in the past.

“Lad?”

“Yes, that was it,” said Celebrimbor, still looking into memory. “Himlad.”

 

* * *

 

Maglor set down the map and raised his hands to his ears, wincing, as a rough voice rang out in the hallway.

“Don’t upset the ink,” said Curufin, and then raised his head. “What is that racket?”

“Eru’s teats, my poor ears” said Celegorm, pushing himself up on his elbows from where he’d been napping on the chaise lounge. “Oh, Valar preserve us – Nelyo’s singing.”

But Celebrimbor, who was sitting quietly off to the side, smiled as his tall uncle came into the room, singing artlessly but with great cheer in an unfamiliar language full of sharp corners and broad syllables. If Maedhros was singing, it meant he was in a good mood, and Celebrimbor liked his uncle best when his ragged face was twisted up into a lopsided smile. Maedhros laid a hand on Celebrimbor’s head as he passed, still singing.

Celegorm made a face. “What is that? What does it mean?”

“ _Whence carven walls we come_ ,” said Curufin, still absorbed in the map. “ _And then to/by/at mighty columns let the echoes ring. As our [neut. pl.] beards drag low_.” He looked back at them as they all stared. “Some odd transitive verbs in there, too. Nelyafinwë, your pronunciation is atrocious.”

“Like yours is any better.”

“You’re singing Naugrim ditties?” asked Celegorm, catching on. “ _Why_?”

Maedhros shrugged his crooked shoulders. “Azaghâl used to sing it all the time and get it stuck in my head. You know how a thing sometimes catches in your brain without you willing it.”

“It is most odd to hear you singing about your beard,” murmured Curufin, returning to his maps and nudging Maglor to draw his attention to a particular section. “Given your lack of one. Currently, anyway. But I suppose you might end up like grandfather, after all.”

“Dead?” said Caranthir sardonically, coming in from the other room.

“No,” said Curufin, narrowing his eyes at him. “Bearded.”

Celegorm chuckled. “By the Horn, imagine Nelyo with a great ginger beard. He’d look like Azaghâl’s papa.”

“He’d look like an ambulatory shrub.”

“Our brother, the leggy shrub, apprentice to a Tree Herder.”

“Our brother the Entwife.”

Maedhros ignored them and kept singing under his breath, striding over to the bookshelf to pick through some titles. His cheer almost certainly indicated that he had been to Barad Eithel recently, and Celebrimbor hugged his legs to his chest and rested his chin on his knees, half wishing Fingon had come to visit them all. He always enjoyed their cousin’s visits, with his quick laugh and his bright eyes, and his shining black hair plaited with gold that always caught the eye in the most distracting way. Celebrimbor had once presented him with a set of thin gold chains, a headdress he had made himself in his father’s forge, and Fingon had taken it from him with great reverence, and thanked him like a prince. He had worn it at the next feast day.

(Curufin had not commented at the time, but made it clear that he thought Celebrimbor’s skills could be put to better use than decorating a son of Fingolfin.)

(But Maedhros’ face had lit up at the sight of Fingon in Celebrimbor’s handiwork, and Celebrimbor had later seen the delicate chains on the bureau in his uncle’s room when he’d gone in there the morning after the banquet, looking for a certain chart.)

Lost in memory, Celebrimbor half drifted off, lulled by the sound of Maedhros’ creaky hum, and the low murmur of his father and uncles as they went back to work.

Maedhros started another verse, and Curufin squinted at the ceiling. “ _Let us swing our…pickaxes into the seam…._ with potency?”

Caranthir grunted. “It’s a euphemism.”

Curufin dropped his gaze from the ceiling to his brother. “How do you know?”

“Telchar told me.” Caranthir shrugged. “Azaghâl isn’t the only one who sings the same damnably catchy tunes.”

“So much Naugrim fraternization,” said Celegorm, shaking his head. “You three share a fetish.”

“Would you be able to transcribe the song for me?” asked Maglor, who wasn’t listening to this exchange. “A translated version, redone for other instruments, might be an interesting project.”

“Get Tyelpe to help you take down the lyrics,” said Curufin. “He can do a side by side translation to Sindarin. Provided he remembers what I taught him of the runes…?”

Celebrimbor nodded, and got up to find some parchment before Maedhros stopped singing.

 

* * *

 

“Lad?”

Celebrimbor jumped at the gentle touch on his low back. “Eh?”

“You left for a bit there,” said Narvi quietly. “Went off behind your eyes.”

“Oh, yes, forgive me, my friend.” Celebrimbor passed an absent hand over his eyes. “Just…thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Narvi’s hand was still warm on Celebrimbor’s back.

“How I’ve finally discovered a shared family quality that I don’t feel ashamed to bear,” said Celebrimbor. “Share a toast with me, Narvi.”

“To what?” Narvi retrieved his own tankard gamely.

“To my father and uncles,” said Celebrimbor, and Narvi started. Celebrimbor never mentioned his family. “To their friendship with wise Dwarves, and, for that matter, my own.”

They toasted in silence, and then Celebrimbor squeezed Narvi’s shoulder swiftly before returning to his songs, and his gold.

_“From carved walls we sing…good friends, good cheer, good solid rock…and our beards drag lo-o-o-o-w…”_

 

 


End file.
